TO THE STRANGER: Regarding Nate Lippens' piece on the Cold K tagger ["Fading Glory," Sept 16]: Nice try, Nate, trying to give some deeper meaning to some doof running around the city spraying the Pac Man symbol on the sides of buildings. I'm not buying it. I'll stick with the psychologists on this one. Studies show that kids who tag tend to have low self-esteem, are below average in intelligence, are underachievers, are more likely to be dropouts, and have few friends. In other words, losers.
You make it sound like this tagger is a deep-thinker who is making a profound social statement about killing the cold of the corporate/ urban life, but when you look at his black Pac Man paintings, they are colder and uglier than the wall they are painted on. Taggers aren't looking to impart some social or artistic message. The main thing they are doing is looking for cheap thrills.
If you love graffiti so much, and think it adds something to our city, on your next cover why don't you post your office address in big letters with an open invitation for taggers of the city to come down and tag your building? I won't hold my breath.
D. Field
BAD FORMULA
EDITOR: I follow graffiti in Seattle, mostly because I'm an artist and I'm fascinated by what people decide to do with their talent--abuse it, cultivate it, waste it, etc. I know the kid writing "COLD KILLER" hasn't been writing that tag for much more than a year. I recall when I first started seeing his Priority Mail slap-tags, and they weren't very good. He's gotten better, I'll give him that. But your featuring him in The Stranger has allowed him to rise from obscurity to fame in about a year. It's a bad formula for "success" to reinforce. You better hope he doesn't fall from a freeway sign-board and crack his skull, or get the shit knocked out of him by a gang member who doesn't think he's very threatening, or get caught and fined--which will send him to collections and end any hope he might have of going to art school on student loans. Oh, I forgot, he might also get his foot zipped off under a train, the way the guy who wrote "PERK" did.
D
VIOLATIONS & VIOLENCE
STRANGER: While I respect your choice to feature a piece on "Cold K," I have to disagree with the aim of your article. Cold K is not art. Cold K is not a political statement. Cold K is, however, a drain on the wrong people's wallets and resources.
I live in a building that Mr. K decides to make more "artistic" about twice a month. I don't make much money; I live in a cramped condo in an old building. As a result of the "art," my homeowners' dues have increased to cover the cost of repainting and grounds work. I don't appreciate this. If Mr. K truly wants to be political, he needs to (not that I am officially advocating this) choose his targets a bit better. If he's upset at the urbanization of Seattle, perhaps targeting new buildings, SUVs, or corporations would be a better aim than targeting a brick condo from 1907 filled with lower-middle-class occupants.
Further, Mr. K is not trying to make Seattle a better place for us to live. A few weeks ago, someone in the building across the street from me noticed three guys painting the "Cold K" ghost on the side of his building. When he asked them to stop, the said three taggers proceeded to beat up the resident until he was so injured he had to pay a visit to the local emergency room. I suggest, in the future, you use a little more common sense when deciding whom you want to glorify. Because, let's be honest: Cold K needs to be vilified. He is wreaking havoc in all the wrong places, and on all the wrong people.
Capitol Hill Resident
DAN SAVAGE RESPONDS: Nate Lippens' piece on Cold Killer and the "tagged" cover of The Stranger were not endorsements of Cold Killer personally, graffiti in general, or property damage in particular. One of the jobs of a paper like ours is to answer the questions that occur to people as they go about their daily lives in this city. Like it or not, Cold Killer's tag is everywhere--it's not out there because we wrote about it; we wrote about it because it's out there. And people are seeing his tags and wondering "What's up with the freakin' ghost? Who's doing this? How the hell did he get up there?" Lippens' piece answered those questions.
FUNKY BREWSTER
DEAR STRANGER: Whatever that three-month-old backwash you kegged and served up as the "concoction" LoveLab Elixir at the Freemont Oktoberfest last weekend was created from, it was absolutely atrocious, disgusting, and horrendous. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the nasty slosh sopped up from the 2:00 a.m. floors of every hipster joint up Pine Street from Belltown to Broadway. I am sorry I wasted one of my stupid tokens on that rank piss-water. That said, I enjoy your paper most of the time. Alright, carry on.
Heather S.
SEPTIEME'S DUE
TO THE EDS: I have been going to Septieme since its inception in Belltown and have followed it down Second Avenue and up to Broadway. I am so glad to see someone FINALLY give the restaurant its due ["Selling Septieme," Dan Savage, Sept 23]. It still is my favorite place after all these years. I am sad that the owner is leaving but I'm relieved that the new owner will keep it the same.
